Monday, May 30, 2016

‘Feudal Stability’ in Post-Soviet States Now as under Brezhnev in USSR Points to Collapse and Chaos Ahead, Portnikov Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 30 – The situations of
Russia and most post-Soviet states “in a surprising way” recall the late
Brezhnev period in the USSR and are increasingly likely to end the same way,
with chaos and collapse not only of regimes but of state borders, with
conflicts and civil wars involving “hundreds of thousands if not millions of
people,” Vitaly Portnikov says.

That prospect which the aging
leaders of this region understand because they lived through it before is why
they cling so tightly to power and continue to tighten the screws, the
commentator says, but as at the end of Soviet times, their actions are making the
approaching end an even greater crisis (7days.us/vitalij-portnikov-vechnye-praviteli-i-budushhij-krax/).

Putin’s “managed democracy” as shown
most recently in the United Russia primaries and Tajikistan’s vote to make its
incumbent president ruler for life “recall Brezhnev’s Soviet Union.” Now, as
then, many understood that nothing much could be changed until the ruler
departed but no one was in a real position to prepare for the changes.

Portnikov points out that the way in
which the various leaders came to power has “no significance” for how they
rule. Putin was given power by his predecessor. Alyaksandr Lukashenka won “the
first and as it turned out the last) democratic elections in Belarus.”
Nursultan Nazarbayev and Islam Kariimov headed the republic communist parts and
simply retitled themselves. And Emomali Rakhmon “was one of the leaders of the
clan which with the support of Moscow and Tashkent won the civil war in Tajikistan.”

Thus, “the striving to preserve
power among former first secretaries, former collective farm heads, and lucky
chekists is completely identical,” the commentator says.“And the systems of power, despite the
geographic distance of Belarus from Tajikistan is not only very similar but
very soviet.”

That is because, he continues, “at
their base are not elections but acclamation, that is, the conditional approval
of the population of the right of the feudal lord to eternal rule.” And these
regimes have in common “a fear of the street,” a place which many of them think
is financed and controlled by the US State Department.

Only three of the 12
former Soviet republics – the Baltic states were occupied and very different –
have been able to break out of this: Ukraine, Moldova, and “in part” Armenia.
In these three the population has mobilized and changed the government and
therefore they have the chance to move forward without radical discontinuities.

What these three
have achieved sends fear into the hearts of the feudal rulers of the other
nine, Portnikov says.It explains Putin’s
approach to Ukraine and Georgia and it is behind Nazarbayev’s recent promise “not
to allow a Ukraine in Kazakhstan.”

There is a particular reason for
concern just now: “many of the leaders of the former Soviet republics are
already far from young.”Given that
their state machines “are constructed exclusively on the authority and
influence” of their leaders, the departure of one or more of them will set in
train radical shifts.

No one knows just what will happen,
he says, because in these countries “you cannot discuss with politicians or
journalists the simple question ‘what will be after’ because no one knows the
answer to that.”Another problem with
these states is that their administrative apparatuses are “practically
completely ineffective,” hence the “hands on” approach of the rulers.

Thus, in the very near future, “the
post-Soviet space [will be] on the brink of the most destructive crisis in its
history after the collapse of the USSR,” on that will change “not only regimes
but state borders and become the cause of clan fights and civil wars” involving
“hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.”

And “the cause of this crisis is the
feudal ‘stability’ established after the collapse of the USSR and which in fact
represented a return to Brezhnev stagnation.”Both then and now, the system looked eternal – but when it began to
fail, it failed and will fail completely, perhaps triggered by “’the untimely
end’” of a ruler. With that, “chaos and collapse will follow.”

The unfortunate fact is that the
nine feudal states cannot find the way forward as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia
have. There is in them no popular sense of responsibility for the future, no
real opposition in the government, and thus “in the event of a collapse of the
regime, the street will rule, not limited by anything.”

“The rulers understand this,”
Portnikov says in conclusion; and therefore “they so fear ‘Maidans.’”But instead of taking the steps that might
make collapse impossible – involving the population in real politics, “they
only tighten the screws more tightly, without suspecting that doing so is one
of the clear signs of the approaching end.”